


The Seeing Place

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 08:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19225411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: Life imitates "art."





	The Seeing Place

**Author's Note:**

> "The world theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place." Stella Adler

As he sits in a musty hall miles from the West End, Aziraphale is happy, not for the first time, that Gabriel's interest in human musical theatre begins and ends with raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. 

This play is clearly a tawdry attempt to cash in on the recent success of “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” (Lovely boy. Aziraphale knew him by sight. Hard to miss him, really.) Aziraphale isn't sure why he bothered coming, but the handbill on the lamppost near the shop had intrigued him, with its illustration of an angel with wings so sumptuous, they made Aziraphale quite envious. The story itself is trite. A tale of star-crossed love that was old hat well before Aziraphale attended the first night of “Romeo and Juliet.” The only novelty is that the love in this case is between an angel and a demon. 

Naturally, it's complete tosh. The angel is presenting as a woman, which few do when assigned to Earth because it tends to make things more complicated for them. Her wings are limp, chicken-feather-and-coat-hanger contraptions, nowhere near as advertised. The demon skulks around in a red jumpsuit with a forked tail, acting like a refugee from the seedier scenes in “Oliver!” The two characters barely appear to like one another. They certainly don't seem filled with the all-consuming passion the clichéd lyrics of their repetitive and uninspired duets are meant to suggest. Aziraphale is about to do something he hasn't since that unfortunate performance of “Our American Cousin” and leave the theatre early when God appears. 

Aziraphale doesn't know much about Her personally, but he does know She isn't too keen on any corporeal representation of Herself. She particularly dislikes, he's heard, being portrayed as a robed grandfather with sandals and an overgrown beard. To no surprise, that is exactly how She is shown here. “God” shuffles onto the stage, tripping over the hem of the robes, and says in a voice muffled by the false beard, “I smite thee, wicked, faithless angel! You are cast out! Begone forever from the Kingdom of Heaven!” 

The angel and the demon stand their ground.

“The power of, um, the power of love is stronger than any force, even yours!” The demon declares. 

“We shall not be rent asunder,” the angel adds. She grabs the demon's hand. “We shall forge our own path.” They both turn to face the audience, which consists of Aziraphale and a dozen pensioners, one of whom is sitting so motionless Aziraphale checked if she was dead. She's not. “As one, bound by love, together!” The angel holds up the demon's hand, as if he has just won a boxing match. 

“Together!” The demon repeats. He pulls the angel into a kiss so graphic, it causes some rustling among the pensioners. Aziraphale supposes if there was a curtain, it would fall at this moment. Since there isn't, the angel and the demon stand there, lips locked, as the rest of the cast, the small band and the consumptive-looking composer/lyricist join them on stage. 

Aziraphale applauds. He's too polite not to, no matter how poor the play. He leaves as quickly as he can, pushing gently past the pensioners who are coughing and spluttering and moving at the speed of glaciers. Outside, it's raining. He hails a cab and slides into the back, giving the address of his shop. 

Normally, he would forget a play that bad almost instantly. Aziraphale's memory is vast, but it's not infinite, and he has several millennia worth of things he wants to remember. He discards those that aren't worth it very quickly. This one, however, lingers. 

_The stupidest part was the ending_ , Aziraphale thinks a few days later, as he's reorganizing his 19th century religious tomes, authors A through M. Love doesn't conquer all. It never has. God wouldn't let an angel off the hook for a transgression like that. She wouldn't bother to smite one personally, but She'd tell Gabriel to get a better handle on his staff. Gabriel would be angry at having been shown up in front of the boss, and, if they were especially lucky, the angel in question would spend the rest of eternity in a back office somewhere, filing. If they weren't as lucky...well, that didn't bear thinking about. And while seducing an angel might win a demon an Employee of the Month plaque, Beelzebub wouldn't exactly be waving the happy couple off on their honeymoon. _The idea would make Crowley laugh_ , Aziraphale thinks, smiling to himself. All of a sudden, he very much wants to meet up with Crowley in person, to share this tale of theatrical disaster with him. 

He hasn't seen a lot of Crowley lately. Not long ago, a decade or so, Aziraphale gave Crowley the flask of holy water he so ill-advisedly asked for, then walked out on him. Things have been different between them since then. Awkward. They rarely run into one another. It's even rarer for Crowley to ring him up and offer dinner at the Ritz or a walk in St. James's Park. Crowley seems to have taken Aziraphale's comment about “going too fast” as a personal rejection, when it was merely an indictment of his driving style. Wasn't it? 

Aziraphale dials his number, but Crowley doesn't pick up the phone. He leaves a rather rambling message on Crowley's newfangled “answer phone”, asking him to stop by if he ever happens to be in the neighbourhood. A week or so later, the shop door swings open. Crowley saunters in, wearing a tight white suit with a plunging neckline and platform shoes so high, he must be using miracles to keep himself upright. 

“Ah...er, hello.” Aziraphale blinks at him. 

“You called?”

“I...” The shoes, Aziraphale notices, have live goldfish swimming about in their transparent heels. Aziraphale wonders how Crowley came up with the idea to put them in there and, more importantly, why he thought it was a good one. “I'm sorry, what exactly are you wearing?”

“The latest thing, angel,” Crowley replies, as if this is evident. “I'm trying to get disco to take off. Nearly there now.” 

“Oh.” Aziraphale furrows his brow. “But ABBA are mine, aren't they?” He seemed to remember Uriel mentioning them once. 

“Three of them are. Is that why you called me here? Because you've never had any interest in cutting-edge music before.” That's not quite true. His edge just isn't as cutting as Crowley's. 

For a moment, Aziraphale can't remember why he wanted to see Crowley, although the sight of him is a happy one, as always. Well, nearly always. Then, it comes to him. That dreadful play. Aziraphale opens his mouth to tell him about it. Instead, the words, “I never said no,” emerge and hang in the air. 

It's not what he meant to say, but it's not wrong, either. Crowley looks away. “Just not yet,” Aziraphale adds. Crowley seems about to reply, but whatever he is planning to say is lost. Aziraphale watches, not quick enough to stop it, as Crowley steps forward, goes, as he himself later describes it, “arse over teakettle” on a stack of hardback Ian Flemings, smashes his heels against the floor, and gives Aziraphale two gasping goldfish and a pile of soggy Bonds to deal with. 

Decades later, Aziraphale finds himself idly remembering those goldfish. They survived and went on to live happy, shoe-free, goldfishy lives. Two little creatures saved by Aziraphale and Crowley, who handed him a goldfish bowl, filled with water, colourful gravel and a little figure of a diver, that hadn't been in the shop a moment earlier. The books were no great loss, although Aziraphale did meet the author shortly afterwards and received a slew of new signed copies, whether he wanted them or not. (He didn't.) 

Now, they've done it again. Cleaned up an unholy mess while retaining as many lives as possible. Of course, Adam and his friends, and Anathema and her boyfriend, had their part in it as well. Aziraphale has never been “up with the times”, but it was only when he saw their composure and courage that he realized how hopelessly out of touch he is with the youth of today. Something else he's learned lately is that if “not yet” doesn't become “now” it can, quite against one's will, very quickly turn into “never.” In this particular case, the idea of “never” is so distasteful, so absolutely vile and incomprehensible to Aziraphale, he knows he can't let it become reality. 

Making “now” happen is easier said than done. In six millennia, close to three hundred human generations, Aziraphale has never taken on anything of this nature. _You never faced Armageddon before, either_ , he reminds himself, _and it's not like you haven't read about this a time or two._ That's true. For the majority of those three hundred generations, human literature has been disproportionately fixated on love. Still, none of what he's read seems quite applicable here. Crowley, he knows, would roll his eyes at the theatricality of a Gothic romance-inspired declaration, and in any case, they're rather short on windswept moors here in London. Crowley likes Shakespearean comedies, but some convoluted plan involving zany antics, anonymous notes and quite probably cross-dressing seems a little over-the-top, even to Aziraphale. Even though Crowley had admired his dress when he was in Madame Tracy's body.

In the end Aziraphale does it the way he always done everything: his own way. They're at the bookshop, a few bottles in. Crowley's in his usual place on the sofa, while Aziraphale perches on his chair. Crowley's talking, and talking, and talking, a tirade about how he mitigated the decline of one of his longtime projects, the television commercial, by making sure people have to subscribe to multiple streaming services to see the programs they want. At least, Aziraphale thinks that's what he's going on about. He stopped listening a while ago. Instead, he's watching. Watching Crowley's hands as he gesticulates, his lips as he speaks, his eyes which Aziraphale once worried were literally mesmerizing, but now knows are just rather pretty. _Do it now_ , a voice inside Aziraphale's head tells him. Before all this, he might have believed it was the voice of God, but now he knows better. It's just him. And that's fine. Even if God still cares for him, which he doubts, he doesn't need Her looking over his shoulder as he kneels in front of the sofa and presses his lips against Crowley's. 

It's not bad. Aziraphale can't quite see what all the fuss is about. Then Crowley opens his mouth and brings his arms around Aziraphale's back, drawing him closer as if he intends to devour him whole. _Ah_ , Aziraphale thinks, head suddenly spinning. _There it is._

The sensation overwhelms Aziraphale in the best of ways. It's better than sushi, better than wine. It might be better than crepes. He wants more of this delectable feeling, wants to get closer to Crowley, wants to use this body to at long last show Crowley how his angelic, non corporeal self feels about him. He clutches at Crowley, who groans. The sound lights a fire, stirring bits of Aziraphale's nether regions that were only ever used as fashion accessories back in the days of codpieces and hose. Aziraphale knows about the stirring, thanks to all the saucy books he's read over the years, but not even they went into quite enough detail. None of them, for example, described how the hardening in Aziraphale's groin is accompanied by an overwhelming surge of love sweeping through his body, a profound affection that's reflected back to him by Crowley. It's rather like the time he stood in a hall of mirrors in Blackpool (one of Crowley's, of course.) Love radiates from him and beams towards him, back and forth for eternity. As blasphemous as it is to think it, Aziraphale has never felt such awe-inspiring joy, not even upstairs. 

Aziraphale has long struggled with a touch of gluttony. This moment is no exception. He is compelled to do yet more, to make the feeling even stronger. He shifts, trying to push Crowley onto his back. Crowley acquiesces, briefly, but before Aziraphale can lie atop his best friend in a way that he absolutely and definitely immediately needs to, Crowley sits up. 

“We have to get sober.”

Aziraphale sits on the sofa beside him and does it. The fuzziness of drink leaves him, but the love and the desire go nowhere. 

“What,” Crowley asks, before Aziraphale can return to kissing him, “exactly do you want?”

There are a thousand ways to put it into words. _To have sex_ seems a little bald, clinical. _To lie with you_ is too Biblical, too reminiscent of the other angels, although Aziraphale can't imagine any of them ever saying it to anyone. They're too selfish, he realizes. Too caught up in themselves to have room for anybody else. It's sad for them. “I want,” Aziraphale says, looking earnestly at Crowley, “to fuck.” 

He rarely uses the word, and only as an interjection, never as a verb. Crowley's eyes widen a little. He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it more disarranged than Aziraphale has seen it since the advent of mirrors. “Right. Uh, well...you've done it before, yeah?”

“Not at all.” 

“What? What about those gavotte guys?” 

Aziraphale draws himself up. “I should think not! Our interest in one another was purely musical.” There were a few who got a little handsy, but Aziraphale smiled and apologized and told them his heart belonged to someone else. A white lie, which is against protocol of course, but strangely it never felt wrong when he said it. “You must have experience with this sort of thing.”

Crowley shakes his head. “Only professionally. Nothing...I mean, this is...I don't...it's just so...” 

“It's all right, my dear.” It is. Aziraphale knows it. He takes Crowley's hand. “'We shall forge our own path, bound by love, together.'” It's a quotation from something. Aziraphale can't remember what, but it feels strangely apropos. In any case, it gets Crowley back on track. 

“Are you joking, angel? That's the soppiest thing I've ever...” Aziraphale pushes him back down onto the sofa, shutting him up with a kiss. It's so remarkably effective, he can't think why they didn't do it sooner.


End file.
